Posts in the “personal” category

“Sometimes I think of Frank as the catcher in the rye, standing at the edge of the cliff, trying to save the world.”

~ Catherine talking about Frank, in Millennium

(Holden: “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.”)

“I met a dolphin down there, and I swear to God that dolphin looked not at me, but into my soul, into my goddamn soul, and said, ‘I’m saving you Megan.’ Not with his mouth, but he said it — I’m assuming telepathically — we had a connection that I don’t even know if I can explain.”

~ from the movie Bridesmaids

These are some notes from the initial test of psilocybin (the chemical in magic mushrooms) on 200 people by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert. I think I found this in a book by Ram Dass (nee Alpert). Note that you can get the same effects more safely from meditation.

I know your anger
I know your dreams
I’m everything you want to be
Like Mussolini and Kennedy
Like Joseph Stalin and Gandhi

Neon lights, a Nobel Prize
A mirror speaks, the reflection lies
I sell the things you need to be
I’m the smiling face on your t.v.
I tell you one and one makes three
I exploit you, still you love me

You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You gave me power in your own god’s name
I’m every person you need to be
I’m the cult of personality

~ from The Cult of Personality, by Living Colour, 1988

For me, seeing the University of Louisville (UL) and Texas A&M play this afternoon — December 30, 2015 — must be how it feels to see two of your kids fighting. When I went to UL I lived in the basement of the house on the left, and when I went to A&M I lived in that brick and cinder block place on the right.

As George Costanza would say, “An Al divided cannot stand.”

A few weeks ago I started my morning with some hot chocolate. :)

December 23, 2019:

Nurse at the hospital, as part of a questionnaire: Do you feel suicidal?

Me: Well, I want to be careful with this because I don’t want you to get the wrong idea ... I don’t mind living ... and I don’t mind dying, but this in-between stuff where you’re constantly sick and can’t work or have any fun ... it is ... very frustrating.

Nurse: So ... [long pause] ... not yet?

Me: Yes, that’s fine.

This is a photo of Zeus, a Siberian Husky we adopted back in the 1990s.

Our dog, Zeus, who had mange when we first “rescued” him.

(“Who rescued who” is an excellent question ... see alvinalexander.com/zeus for more information.)

In the “lucid dream holodeck” this morning, I was hanging out with a group of peeps when a tornado suddenly appeared. Everyone started running for cover, and I grabbed a dog and started running for a basement when I looked back at it and thought, “This isn’t a tornado, it’s just an insane amount of energy.”

Holding the dog under my right arm, I stood my ground. When I did this, the energy stopped moving like a tornado, and — skipping over the whole “Transformers” thing — it eventually took on a female human form.

Further skipping past our introductions ... I eventually suggested that she talk to some other people in the dreamspace, but she said no, I had less “hate-y bits” than the other people. (Language differences often make for interesting translations.)

A sidewalk, somewhere in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

This is a photo of a sidewalk that I took somewhere in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I love the colors and artistry of the city.

This is a photo of a sidewalk in front of an art museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (Sorry, I don’t remember the name of the museum and I’m too lazy atm to look it up.)

I applied a Gaussian Blur effect to the cars on the right and the bright stuff at the end of the corridor (using Gimp), and it’s amazing how much that makes the rest of the image “pop” out. Nothing else has been altered.

In one of my ongoing nightly dream series, I’m a young man who works at a restaurant at night. Two nights ago I was working there when a female co-worker told me she bought a Christmas gift for me, and wanted to see if we could do a gift exchange. I hadn’t gotten her anything yet, so I said something like, “I, I ... I can’t do it right now because <insert excuse here>. How about tomorrow?”

After work I went out to buy something for her. “Think, think,” I said to myself, probing my dream memory, “what would be a nice gift?” Then I remembered that a few weeks ago she told me about something she always wanted when she was younger, so I went out and found that item, and wrapped it up.

Last night we exchanged gifts during a break at work. She opened hers first, and when she saw it she began to cry. “Uh-oh,” I thought, “now you’ve gone and made her cry. This might not be good.” But then she said it was beautiful and thoughtful, and said her gift to me was nothing compared to it.

Tonight I think I’m going to call in sick to work, or maybe just stay up all night and binge-watch Stranger Things.

~ December 13, 2017

I was going through old photos recently and found this “Bleeding Heart” drawing that I made on a Buddha Board back in February, 2015. FWIW, Buddha Boards seem to make good Christmas gifts. I got this one as a Christmas gift in 2014.

(In December, 2020, it reminds me of the heart infection I had last Christmas.)

I fall into the category of “spiritual but not religious,” but I like this affirmation at the end of the little booklet, The Law of Success, by Paramhansa Yogananda:

“Heavenly Father, I will reason; I will will; I will act; but guide Thou my reason, will, and activity to do the right thing that I should do.”

(As a note, the “will will” part is not a mis-quote or mis-type.)

This is a Christmas gingerbread house/hotel they had at The Lodge at Santa Fe, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This was during the Christmas/holiday season in 2012-2013.

Son, she said
Have I got a little story for you
What you thought was your daddy
Was nothin’ but a ...

While you were sittin’ home alone at age thirteen
Your real daddy was dyin’
Sorry you didn’t see him
But I’m glad we talked

~ Alive, Pearl Jam

“It’s only fear that makes you run,
The demons that you're hiding from.”

~ Melissa Etheridge, I’m Not the Only One

Which reminds me of this:

“There are two kinds of people in Alaska: those who were born here, and those who come here to escape something. I wasn’t born here.”

~ Rachel Clement, Insomnia

“It’s very hard to grow, because it’s difficult to let go of the models of ourselves in which we’ve invested so heavily.”

~ from the book One Liners, by Ram Dass